Bloodwitch (The Witchlands, #3)

Just before Merik’s eyes seared shut, unable to fight the heat or the light or the noise, he saw the magicked lightning hit one of the stones. It fractured, a sound that ripped across the sky, ripped into Merik’s exposed skin.

A boom of energy tore through the earth. It dragged Merik down, back into the mud, where rain hammered against him and shadows took hold once more.





FIVE


Today was the day.

Two weeks of preparation, of cleaning and assembling, of organizing and arranging and pestering the High Council for help, donations, people—anything really, the stingy bastards—and now the underground city was finally ready for refugees.

Vivia Nihar, however, Queen-in-Waiting to the Nubrevnan throne, was not ready at all.

Her heart seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere behind her esophagus, and she had rubbed so much at her left coat cuff that she’d actually snapped off the gold button.

Whoever found it would be very happy, indeed.

Vivia stood before the Pin’s Keep main entrance, crowds thick before her. Squalling babes and frantic fathers; lone, lost teenagers; and coughing grandmothers, too. But none were the faces Vivia wanted—the two faces she’d expected to see when the chimes had rung in the ninth hour.

Come on, Stix, come on. This wasn’t like her. Stacia Sotar, Vivia’s former first mate—now elevated to full captain—was always on time, always early. Yet nowhere in the thicket of hungry faces did Vivia spot Stix’s white hair, so bright against her black skin.

Nor did she spot the man Stix and five other guards were meant to escort: her father, Serafin Nihar, former King and former King Regent.

“You’re sure they aren’t inside?” Vivia asked her own nearest guard for the fourth time since the chimes had clanged. And for the fourth time, the woman shook her head. “There’s no one inside Pin’s Keep, Highness. As ordered.”

The shelter had been completely cleared out. All its volunteers now waited in the cellar where the tunnel to the under-city began, or else they waited in the under-city itself. Fifty soldiers also stood sentry, while another two hundred were dispersed throughout Lovats, as insisted upon by Vizers Quihar and Eltar. Riots are a possibility, they kept chorusing, and loath as Vivia was to admit that they were right …

Well, they were right. Vivia’s lottery system might have worked thus far without protest, but once families saw others being escorted into a new, underground home, such reactions might shift like a fickle tide.

And Vivia could hardly blame them. Lovats had been in shambles since the seafire attack two weeks ago, and it had hardly been pristine or whole before that. Which was why Vivia had had her Pin’s Keep volunteers spend a week telling any and every person they met that this lottery system was Only step one in a much larger, longer-term plan to house the city!

Admittedly, Vivia had yet to sort out the rest of her plan, and the sudden ending of the Twenty Year Truce—as well as the resuming war that the Truce had paused—now kept the High Council too distracted to help her. Once her coronation finally came, though, and once she finally wore the crown that was hers by birth, then she could take matters into her own hands. She wouldn’t need the approval of a bunch of men who never agreed on anything.

Vivia cleared her throat. She couldn’t wait any longer; Stix and her father would just have to miss the opening. She gave a final swipe against her shirt front. Then patted the edges of her face. A movement she had done so often as a child, and had thought she’d grown out of as an adult.

Until two weeks ago, when they’d named her Queen-in-Waiting.

When you are with others, her mother always used to say, the Little Fox must become a bear. Now, is your mask on, Vivia?

Yes, Mother, Vivia thought. It’s on. Her lips parted, and the crowds nearest her quieted—

Then there they were. Stix at the fore, shoving through the fray and half a head taller than the rest. Behind her, surrounded by soldiers in the same navy uniforms Stix wore, marched Serafin.

And Vivia realized the people hadn’t quieted for her at all. They recognized the former King; they gawped and whispered and waved. Serafin waved back, grinning. His cheeks bore more color than Vivia had seen him wear in almost a year.

She should be happy about that. And she was—she really was. Yet there was something else knotting in her belly. Something she didn’t like that she wished would stop immediately. And it did stop the instant her eyes met Stix’s. The instant Stix smiled, dazzling and bright.

Heat fanned up Vivia’s neck onto her face, an inescapable blush that happened every time she saw her best friend, and likely would continue until Vivia finally worked up the courage to mention the kiss from the under-city.

Nothing had been the same since that kiss—a mere brush of Stix’s lips on Vivia’s cheek. And nothing had been the same since Vivia had been labeled Queen-in-Waiting … yet not truly labeled at all, because although the power might have passed from her father to her, the “waiting” part seemed more important to the High Council than the “queen” part.

“So sorry, Your Highness,” Stix murmured, hurrying into position on Vivia’s left side. “A message came in that needed immediate processing. But,” she added, glancing at Serafin, “I wasn’t sure he should see it.”

“What could be—”

Stix waved her off. “We can deal with it after this.”

Right. This. The unveiling of Vivia’s under-city. The reason all these hundreds of families had lined up, and these thousands of people had piled into the Skulks to ogle her.

And the reason Vivia’s guts had punched holes through her other organs.

“Vivia,” her father declared, a bass boom that could silence an entire city—and did. It was good to hear him so strong after months of fragile whispers. It was, it was. “Shall we begin?” Serafin moved to Vivia’s other side.

“Hye,” she breathed, and hastily, she tapped once more at the edges of her face. Yes, Mother, it’s on. Then she sucked in her breath, matched her father’s fierce expression, and—

“The empires,” Serafin bellowed, “have resumed the war.”

Vivia’s teeth clacked shut.

“We did not ask for this, and we never have.”

Her father was speaking. Why was he speaking?

“Always, they try to cow us and displace us. Always they try to crush us beneath their boot heels, and always, Nubrevna has stood strong.”

What was her father doing? This was supposed to be her speech. Vivia had spent three days writing it.

“This city and its people have stood for centuries.” He opened his arms wide, body hale and voice relentless. “And we will stand for centuries more. Today marks a new era for us. A new beginning that we will not let the empires steal away.”

He pumped a fist to the sky, and the crowds broke loose like a thunderstorm. Noise slammed against Vivia, charged and alive.